Kolo Toure’s positive drug test arrives in wake of short ban for Hamilton player

Manchester City’s Kolo Toure has failed a drugs test for a ‘specified substance’ his club have announced this evening. Depending on the ratification of the finding, he could receive a sanction ranging from a caution to a two-year ban.

The length of any ban will be dependent on the substance found, the explanation for why it was in his body, and any mitigating circumstances.

The positive test was the first in English football – under the auspices of the English FA – since a case involving an unidentified player who took cocaine and whose case was dealt with in January 2010.

A story on this website from April last year, linked here, contains all the drugs bans, 24 of them, handed out by the FA between Adrian Mutu’s 2004 case and January 2010. Scroll down that story for the case list: most cases involved cocaine or ‘wacky backy’.

Toure’s case comes just a few days after it was revealed that Simon Mensing of Hamilton in the SPL had tested positive for a banned substance, methylhexaneamine, in December. The Englishman explained that he had taken a contaminated dietary supplement and provided credible evidence to back up his case.

He therefore received a short ban (rare) of a month, which he served from 29 January to 28 February this year, the whole ban served before his case was made public.